Desktop Recommendations

I'm sure these threads are a dime a dozen, so I'll cut to the chase.

My now five-year-old Dell XPS is starting to bluescreen daily, and almost in time for Cyber Monday. I'm in the market for a prebuilt desktop, moderately future-proofed (with longevity in mind more than power), and I'd like to see what a >4-core CPU can do with BeamNG, if possible. I've taken a liking to Nvidia, but an equivalent to a 900-series or later GTX will do. Budget-wise, I'm pretty loose. Any less than $800 dollars (with or without Cyber Monday sale) would make me happy. Upper limit would be a grand.

Currently, I'm just considering getting a newer-generation XPS, which is pretty much the same spiel as the current one: good power for its time, but nominal to insufficient graphics and high cost.

I couldn't find my way around a computer with a compass and a map, let alone the marketplace at peak selling season, so any advice would be appreciated.

 

I've got an XPS 8500. Upgraded it myself with a better PSU, SSD and GPU. I bought this machine because I really liked the design of the case and I didn't have much experience with building an entire pc. Upgrading the GPU and PSU is a fairly easy task.

You could go for a (used) XPS 8900 or similar, and upgrade the PSU and GPU yourself if you wish. I think an i7 6700 and GTX960 is standard. Changing parts is really easy on these machines.

 

or build one yourself with the help of a couple youtube videos. easy cheap and fun.

 

Try looking for a motherboard bundle. Here in Melbourne, there is a shop that sells a xeon e230, decent motherboard, and 16 gb of ddr4 for only ~600 aud (440 usd). This gives plenty of money for a good gpu, and enough for a decent PSU, case and hard drive. As for building it, it is really, really, really easy. A great way to save money, and perhaps personalise your system.

The motherboard bundle will make it (somewhat) easier to build, but there isn't much to it, really

 

It's impossible to reccomend a Dell for me when you could build. Here's a ~$900 build I'm doing soon:

i5-6600k
MSI Z170 Krait 3x
Crucial Ballistix DDR4-2400 (2x4gb)
Gigabyte Windforce OC GTX 1060
OR
XFX RX 480 Blower Edition
Corsair Carbide 100R Silent
Seasonic 550W Semi Modular PSU
PNY CS1111 SSD

I understand that you don't have much experience building, but I believe building is both a good learning experience and a good savings over pre made. I know you said you were interested in >4 cores, but it is interesting to note that the 6600k beats out AMD's 8-core FX-8350. Just things to consider...

Cheers, Nolo

 

I know your looking for desktops, but just in case for laptops I just bought a Dell I7559- I76700HQ W/960M 4GB.

I got it for around $720 USD, not as good build quality as a XPS but the base specs are there and for the price I think it's really good.

 

That's probably what I'll do. None of the specs look like they're a huge step-up, but having a higher ceiling for upgrades later on would be nice, as would having a computer I hopefully will feel I can depend on. The 8900's vanilla description says there's a bit of leeway with the PSU, so getting a better GPU wouldn't be impossible. With a little help, I could probably upgrade other pieces later on.

Quick question: when shopping via a computer purveyor's website, is the section titled 'for work' exclusively for businesses, or is it just a selection tailored more for workplaces?

I'm not going to build a computer, at least this time around. I know I should and I'm starting to have tentative plans to do so at some point in the future. The advantages are there, I just don't trust myself. Having said that, I do like that tutorial and I'll bookmark it for future use. The easy-to-follow walkthrough of the computer's parts will at least help me navigate my machine when next I tackle upgrading.